Tough times and lessons learned

Economists tell us the recession spanned 18 months, from December 2007 to June 2009.

But the pain didn't end there for millions of Americans hurt by tighter lending standards, a temporary but perilous plunge in the stock market, slumping home values and soaring unemployment rates.

Now, more than four years after the recession's end, there are hopeful signs. Gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent and 3.2 percent in the final quarters of 2013. Meanwhile, Erie County's unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in December for the first time in five years.

Regardless of where the economy goes from here, the past six years have been difficult ones for many Americans.

We asked four Erie County residents to share their thoughts on the recession, the tough times that followed and the lessons they learned.

Lyle Swartout, a Lake City resident and father of two, spent 15 months looking for work after a layoff from CMI Energy in January 2009.

His personal recession ended with a job as a draftsman at Donjon Shipbuilding and Repair.

But his time there would prove to be little more than a reprieve. This job, like the last one, would end in a layoff as business slowed.

This layoff didn't last nearly as long. While his wife, Michelle, continues to work as a nurse's aide, he's found work as a draftsman, working for the Warren Co.

Swartout and his family can count themselves as survivors.

They held on to their house, and his daughter, Nicole, will graduate from college this spring.

But they've also downsized their lifestyle and expectations. Swartout sold his family's camper and let go of the campsite the family used to enjoy.

Swartout, 47, enjoys his job and likes the people he works for, but he doesn't know that he'll ever get back to where he used to be financially.

"We're doing middle of the road, paying the bills," he said. "I have never landed a job making as much money as I used to."

Unemployment taught him something, though.

It wasn't the lack of money in his pocket that bothered him most.

"I just want to be working," he said.

Marsha Marsh should have known better. Even a casual observer could have told her that 2008 was less than the perfect time to launch her own real estate firm after years as an agent working for other companies.

The nation was in the midst of a credit crisis. Home prices in the nation's biggest housing markets had collapsed, and cautious appraisers were suddenly shy about assigning values.

Marsh ignored what would have seemed like painfully obvious advice. Six years later, she's tripled her sales and has 38 agents selling under her name.

Marsh said her recipe for success was simple. She and her team ignored the bad news swirling around them, put their heads down and went to work.

It wasn't easy.

"It was the worst time in the market," she said.

Bad as things were, Marsh clung to one happy reality. The Erie real estate market might have been slow, but it was in far better shape than in much of the nation.

Still, sellers were hesitant to list, and lenders were reluctant to loan.

"I could have laid down and played dead and then been mad," she said. "But I said, 'How can we work through this?' We said to our agents, 'You have to move forward and do whatever you can.' Sometimes we all have to compromise to get it done."

Would Marsh do it again, opening a new business in the teeth of a recession?

"Never for one second did I doubt this," she said. "We just had to work harder to get here."

Doug Luthringer remembers how that October day in 2008 began. He shared the happy news that his wife was expecting their second child.

An hour or so later, Luthringer's boss came to him with news of his own. His job was being eliminated.

Luthringer, now 35, had become a victim of the recession.

But Luthringer, who had dreamed of becoming a chief executive of a major company, was determined not to remain a victim.

He started his own business, thefastmall.com, a home-based operation that uses eBay online auction services to sell items for clients.

Luthringer hasn't gotten rich, but he has kept busy, typically putting in more than 50 hours a week, selling surplus and obsolete equipment, mostly for small businesses and area school districts.

So far, he's sold about 17,000 items for a total of nearly $900,000.

He's learned a few things along the way.

At first, he said, "I was willing to take everything to make sure money still flows in. But I found I was wasting a lot of time on less valuable things. I'm a little more picky now."

That approach has paid off. Luthringer said he increased his sales by 70 percent in 2013.

Although he's not making as much money as he had hoped, Luthringer said it would be tough to walk away from his business.

"It's great being your own boss," he said. "I can pick up my kids or, if they're sick, I can cancel my appointments."

As much as he still dreams of the corner office, Luthringer said he values what he has.

"I look at these people who have achieved these great things and high-profile jobs. They don't get to spend time with their kids and be a part of their lives. It's a trade-off."

The nation's plastics industry had already encountered tough times when the recession began in 2007.

Some of the region's largest plastics companies, including Andover Industries and Erie Plastics, closed their doors between 2005 and 2008. More than a thousand jobs were lost from the slowing auto industry and increased foreign competition.

But for Kurt Duska, owner of Engineered Plastics and EPI Recycling Solutions, the past few years have been a period of growth. He has established his recycling business on West 12th Street and built a new location in North Carolina.

"The recession, I think, was good and bad," he said. "It forced companies to reinvent themselves."

Duska said he succeeded in part because he steered his company toward more profitable products and developed the plastic recycling end of the business.